


spin me 'round again and rub my eyes

by theviolonist



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:45:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Apollo is that he's not someone you can pin down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spin me 'round again and rub my eyes

He's been waiting in Chinatown for what seems forever. Of course the god of fucking sunshine has no concept of punctuality, he doesn't know why he still shows up in time, after all these years.

Apollo turns the corner just as the sun dunks red behind the skyscrapers, as though he were afraid of his namesake. Which wouldn't be all that surprising, really - he does the weirdest shit for the sake of his penniless artist cred.

"Sorry," he breathes, looking impossibly gorgeous in the red-gold light dust. "Artemis was taking forever in the shower. You know my sister."

Hermes winces. He's always followed Aphrodite's advice when it comes to the twins - _don't dig too deep; you wouldn't like what you'd find_. 

"I didn't ask," he mumbles, trying to sound annoyed. Which is useless, in any case: it's impossible to stay mad at Apollo for more than five minutes. 

Apollo beams, throwing his head back in laugher. "Aw, don't be grouchy, Herm. How 'bout some dim sum? I'll buy your forgiveness."

Hermes nods wordlessly, slanting a look at Apollo while he isn't looking. Sometimes he can't think why he still answers his calls, why he doesn't untag himself from all the Facebook photos from the twins' Saturday night parties and disappear into the woodwork. Lack of self-preservation instinct, probably. It does run in the family.

"Sure," he gives up, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Lead the way."

+

The thing about Apollo is that he's not someone you can pin down. Except for his morning routine – getting up at the crack of dawn to hop back to Olympus and take his chariot stroll with Râ – there's no way to tell where he'll be at any given moment, what – or who – he'll be doing; it's just as likely that he's roaming the dingy art galleries in the West End than that he's squirreled his way into an Upper East Side brunch and is chatting up socialites over mimosas. Once he disappeared for five days only to be found sitting at the very back row of a _Wicked_ performance, which he'd apparently been watching for twenty times straight.

Artemis probably knows the secrets to deciphering him, but if she does there's no getting them out of her – at best her relationship with Apollo is scary co-dependency, and at worst she's lugging plates at him and locking him out of their apartment for weeks on end. She does like Hermes, in the sort of absent-minded way she reserves for anyone not her own sex; sometimes he gets the impression she pities him slightly, thinks of him as that poor sucker taken in by her brother's charms. Which, to be fair, isn't really that far off. 

Truth be told, there was no resisting him. Like all the gods his generation, Hermes spent his childhood mostly on mount Etna, which at the time looked a bit like a communal nursery. He was ten when Apollo decided to adopt him as his best friend, and even if he hadn't wanted to, he would have been bound to spend enough time with him to become more than acquaintances, what with his job lugging messages back and forth between all the Olympus VIPs. Which, Hermes hopes Zeus never discovers Twitter, otherwise he's going to become superfluous real quick. Not that he would mind a little bit more free time, but he actually likes his job. Go figure. 

So Apollo – Apollo's there, and Hermes comes when he calls and sure, it's pathetic, but it's what it is. Sometimes when he gets drunk and prophetic Apollo sprawls on Hermes's ratty couch and he dangles his fingers on the edge of Hermes's jaw, and Hermes holds his breath, waiting for something that never comes. 

"You're a good friend," Apollo sometimes tells him, slurring and smelling of vodka – and then it's back to business, and Hermes gets his notebook out from under the cushions and jots down Apollo's inscrutable mumblings to pass out to Pythia, the beggar lady on Fifth. 

+

This isn't going to end well. in fact, there is a 90% chance that this is going to end up spectacularly wrong. Hermes isn't sure what possessed him to agree to go out to a club with Apollo; maybe it was his friends and siblings, crowding Apollo like a halo, urging him on, and maybe it was Apollo himself, his crooked grin and the enthralling smell of his cologne. Or maybe it was Hermes's poor decision-making. He did keep the secret about Aphrodite and Mars for nearly a year, after all, and look how that ended. 

So now he's in _The Lethe_ , the most sulfurous club Eros, Aphrodite's seventeen-year-old son, could find; the music is pounding and everything around him is glitter and stroboscopic lights. From the corner of his eye Hermes spies athena dancing with a boy he recognizes as Odysseus, one of the students in the law course she teaches at NYU, to whom she's taken a shine; a girl with dark eyes is watching them from the bar, sucking on a pink drink with a ridiculous umbrella. Behind the bar Ismene is working steadily, keeping her head down, the light making her more beautiful than she is. Hermes wonders what kind of trouble her sister is in this time – Ismene is always taking odd jobs to bail her out of jail, try and keep her away from the countless protests Antigone breaks her voice in, since their uncle cut them off. 

Hermes likes those girls, especially Antigone; the rumors of the trouble she gets into inevitably reach him and he sometimes visit her in their crappy apartment in Hoboken, despite the sun and the sour smell of failure. She makes eggs and Bloody Marys and laughs and he sometimes wishes he could be in love with her, instead. It would be trouble, but he was always destined to fall in love with trouble, his mother used to tell him that - _you're too quiet not to_. At least it wouldn't be Apollo.

A hand touches his elbow and he whirls around, convinced for some reason that Antigone is going to be the one he's looking at in the half-darkness. He sucks in breath when he finds Apollo instead. 

"Hey," Apollo says, his eyes dark. "Where've you been?"

He's not asking about geography, but Hermes ignores it. He shrugs. "Couldn't find someone pretty enough?" he asks with a half-hearted leer. 

It's protocol on night like those; Apollo slides near some pretty girl or boy and sets a hand on their shoulder, offers them a drink or a dance, though sometimes a grin would have done the trick; and Hermes watches as their pupils melt and expand and they recline into Apollo's embrace, ready to be swallowed up. Hermes would pity them, but he's pretty sure he would be the exact same given half a chance. 

"Nah," Apollo says. his throat is golden, glistening with sweat, and Hermes can't take his eyes away. "I wanted to dance with you."

 _No thank you_ is what Hermes should say - _would_ say, if he were in his right mind and hadn't had one beer too many before starting on the shots. He would invent some excuse and make his way to the bathroom, rest his back against the door, take a breath, splash some water on his face. 

Instead he just inclines his head and it means yes, of course it means yes, and Apollo takes his hand, skin burning like he's absorbed the heat of everybody in the room, plasters himself against Hermes, too close. The music is easy to move to, some modern pop garble about dancing 'til you drop. Hermes would do just that, if it wasn't Apollo pressed against him, breathing in his neck.

When Apollo kisses him he isn't really surprised; he yields obediently, opens his mouth under Apollo's and ignores the odd feeling in his chest, like heartburn. Besides, with the light shimmering all around them he can almost pretend it's a dream, one of his aunt Persephone's gentler drug-induced trips, lighted to the tune of the black underground sun.

+

New York burns with early morning light and Hermes blinks, his mind suddenly full of all the messages he's ever passed – declarations of war, confessions of love, inane requests and shopping lists, and Apollo's fucking sibylline revelations. Pythia always smiles at him when she gets them, like she understands what Apollo's saying – the same look he's seen on Athena after Zeus talks to her, a soldier look, I'll do what you want me to do. But she's mortal. How could she understand – how could she understand, and not him?

He's still drunk – the cold wind hits him and he staggers, looking out into the bustling street. Life never stops here in the Big Apple; that's why they chose it to live, because they never stop either. They don't sleep. They eat, sometimes, when they remember to: but what they really need to do is live, live the thousand lives that are what makes gods, what builds them up into divinities.

Hermes stumbles forward, lips still seared with Apollo's kiss. He really should get used to it. An old lady sitting on a bench darts a look at him, scandalized and maybe a little worried. Hermes wonders what he looks like, still in clubbing gear, his lips branded and red, hair messed up. How human. 

He takes a deep breath, counting in his head. Tomorrow he'll go back to Olympus, gather up his next round of messages. he'll talk to Aphrodite – she'll know what to do. And now... now there's no time to worry. He takes a step forward. 

The old lady's gasp when he steps into traffic, into the relentless ocean of lights and noises, is faint but clearly audible. Hermes turns around to smile at her. _Don't worry_ , he mouths just before a truck hurls its headlights against his side, _gods never die_.


End file.
